TWO GUESSES. Which Hot Topic From Last Year Was Ignored By This Year’s Pulitzer Prize Awards

Last year, the Washington Post and the New York Times shared a Pulitizer Prize for “National Reporting” for their coverage of the Mueller investigation. This is how it was billed:

For deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration. (The New York Times entry, submitted in this category, was moved into contention by the Board and then jointly awarded the Prize.)

Perhaps there are two unifying threads in the list of stories. First, there is a credulous adherence to whatever snakeoil James Comey, or John Brennan, or some other “source” was peddling on a particular day. Secondly, there is no curiosity at all about the links, obvious even in 2017, between Brennan, the FBI, Christopher Steele, and the provenance of the Steele (or Trump) dossier.

For uncovering President Trump’s secret payoffs to two women during his campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him, and the web of supporters who facilitated the transactions, triggering criminal inquiries and calls for impeachment.

Could it be possible that the implausible narrative that yielded 19 sponge award-worthy stories only a year ago couldn’t genereate a single story this time around?

Not likely.

If you wanted a stark acknowledgement of the hoax that was the Russia collusion investigation and the fraud that was the reporting associated with it, this is it. As far as the Pulitizer Committee is concerned, either nothing happened last year moved the Mueller investigation forward or that it just didn’t happen.